Words fail me on the scam DC is running on this... but they don't fail this guy: The Big Lie on Deficit Reductions

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The Big Lie on Deficit Reductions

by Larry Huss Wednesday, July 13. 2011

So you woke up last Friday to the news that President Obama and the Congressional leaders had agreed to pursue the “most aggressive plan” for deficit reduction – a $4 Trillion whopper. Then you’re thinking, Well Mr. Obama and his Democrat colleagues increased the federal deficit by $4 Trillion in just two years, they damn well ought to reduce it by $4 Trillion. You’re starting to feel good about the economy and even about the President – possible even about the Congress.

But then you read the Wall Street Journal and learn that they really aren’t going to reduce the deficit at all. That’s right. This big talk about deficit reduction is really about slowing the growth of the deficit – not an actual reduction.

And then you learn that they aren’t talking about a $4 Trillion reduction over the next two years – the same amount of time that it took the Democrats to increase it by $4 Trillion – in fact, they are talking about $4 Trillion over 10 years. TEN YEARS. That’s $400 Billion a year. The total federal budget for fiscal year 2011 was $4.83 Trillion with a forecasted deficit of $1.27 Trillion for the year. A $400 Billion reduction would not even bring it close to the $2.9 Trillion budget in 2009 – the year before the massive and pointless spending by Mr. Obama and his Democrat colleagues.

But then you find out that we aren’t even really talking about a $400 Billion decrease for the next fiscal year. Rather, you discover that the $4 Trillion is backend loaded. That’s right, the vast majority of the reduction in spending occurs in the very last years of the ten-year plan.

When I was an executive at U S WEST (since absorbed, first by Qwest and then by CenturyLink) market units were created to address the growing competition in the telecommunications market. The new heads of the market units had varying skills and experience but they all had something in common – the five-year planning cycle. And they all responded to the five-year planning cycle with the same hockey stick projections. That means that in the first three years virtually no progress was made, in year four a break even was achieved and in the fifth year business took off like a rocket.

The problem was that in twenty years at U S WEST I never once saw a five-year cycle come to conclusion. At some point in the five-year cycle a change was made – new leaders, realignments of market segments, and on and on. The point is that everyone knew that there would never be final accountability because the plan would be abandoned before the end of the planning cycle.

The same is true with the President and the Congress. Increasing the planning cycle from five to ten years ensures that no sitting president will be held accountable because the life of a plan exceeds a president’s term – even with re-election. Increasing the planning cycle to ten years allows the participants to talk about larger numbers – make the problem and the solution more dramatic. And making the planning cycle ten years allows the participants to push the benefits (or the damage) out even further. But most of all it ensures that there will never be any accountability because of intervening changes and elections.

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The lies from both sides sicken me.
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